Tips and strategies for online sales and marketing, and how to use SiteCaddy to manage your web presence.

Email

02/18/2013

E-mail was originally intended to provide a simple means of communication between two people. But in the 21st century it’s become a double-edged sword. It’s both a business lifeline and an unwieldy monster. Start to reconsider how you use e-mail, unchain yourself from your inbox, and improve the way you manage your business.

Not a Total Business Solution

Think about all the ways you use e-mail beyond communications. If you’re like me (or how I used to be) then you probably use it for project management, contact management, file storage, task tracking, event scheduling, sales pipeline, news feed… and much more. Start to find purpose-built tools for these tasks and you will be surprised at how much you can improve your business processes.

Requirements

Two requirements for the tools we choose to ensure they will serve us well into the future.

We need collaboration. Most e-mail accounts need to remain private for legitimate business reasons. But that privacy means that most of what goes into your inbox gets hidden from your team forever – unless you take the time to share it with them. We will only consider tools that promote collaboration.

We need mobility. You no longer just work at your desk. You might work from four different devices during the course of your day (desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone) and our tools should be accessible from all devices.

Sales Pipeline

When new business enquiries arrive (new sale, new opportunity) be sure to immediately get the core data out of the e-mail and into your CRM (and sales pipeline system if you use one). Otherwise if business is going well, earlier opportunities will get pushed down your inbox, forgotten, and lost.

Task Management

It’s too easy to forget important tasks if they are stored in e-mail – even if you do flag, star and categorise them. There are great task-tracking tools on the market like Evernote.com andAstrid.com. At SiteCaddy, we use Zendesk.com to create tickets for all tasks related to client requests and Jira.com for all internal tasks.

File Sharing

Never store files in e-mails. You can’t search them, you can’t share them, and it will slow down the operation of your e-mail software. If you are the only one that needs the file, then save it to your computer. But if the file needs to be shared, then use a tool like Dropbox.com or Drive.google.comto store files in the cloud and make them accessible to team members.

Conversation

When a conversation gets into some length or includes more than two people, consider conversation management tools like Hipchat.com or Campfirenow.com. These tools not only allow you to share ideas, but also to connect assets like files, tasks and schedules with the conversation.

Project Management

Conversations, files, tasks… they are often part of an overarching project. Let’s say you’re finally going to build that extension to the office. Messages and files from contractors, staff, regulators… nightmare! Project management systems such as Basecamp.com and Trello.com can help you to combine everything: collaboration, conversation, file and task management, scheduling, and much more. There is some overhead involved in getting used to it, but I would never touch a large project without a system like these.

Unsubscribe

Of course the easiest way to manage your inbox is by reducing the number of e-mails you receive. If you do not read e-mail from a certain source, then unsubscribe. You can always join again. And most publications offer RSS feeds in addition to e-mail. Unsubscribe from the e-mail, and read the news online using an RSS aggregator: most browsers either have them built-in or offer them as extensions.

07/01/2009

I hope you enjoyed Part 1 of this post, where I described 10 ways to improve your email campaigns. Here's Part 2 with 10 more tips.

Note: Many of these points are more relevant to email campaigns, but many can be applied to text messaging (SMS) as well.

11) Choose Delivery Times That Work For Your Recipients

There is no universally perfect time to send a message- what's important is the right time for your recipients. You know your members and customers and you can judge the best time for them. But here are a few tips and guidelines:

Sending a message during the weekend may result in a message being lumped in with many others on Monday morning.

People may not be as focused on Friday afternoons.

Your recipients may be in different time zones.

Messages targeted at business people can work well between 10am and 4pm on weekdays.

The weekend is an option for messages targeted at a leisure audience.

Coordinate your online messages with offline campaigns.

And remember that your recipients may not read your message until days or even weeks after you send it. Include specific dates in combination with time relative words like "today" or "this week". Your "today" might be your recipient's "last week"!

12) Multiple Messages for Special Occasions

Some subjects (especially for special events) are best served by multiple campaigns- like a "Save The Date" card for a wedding invitation. You might:

Send a preliminary message far in advance to alert your recipients to the event;

Send a detailed message closer to the time;

Send a short reminder the day before the event;

Just be careful not to overdo it- save multiple message campaigns like this for truly special occasions- otherwise your recipients might feel overwhelmed and opt-out.

13) Try Different Strategies

By checking your message reports you will be able to tell which campaigns are more successful. Not every message can be a blockbuster, but your goal (as with your website visitor numbers) is to focus on the trends and not the numbers. Don't be afraid to mix things up a little from campaign to campaign. For example:

Try different subject lines to see which capture the imagination.

Send at different times of day and days of week.

Try different versions of the same campaign to different recipients and groups.

Vary the length and the content of the message.

14) Write For Your Reader, Not For Yourself

We all feel we have something to say. We all feel our business is the best business in the world. But always remember your recipients' priorities. Will they be more interested in hearing your opinion on current affairs, or a special offer that will save them money and make their life better? Site Caddy can be a soapbox, but it should be a business tool.

15) How Do You Read Messages?

Do you read every message you get? Do you read every line of every message, or just scan the subject lines and first paragraph? Do you get upset by spam, or if a company keeps sending you messages even if you don't want them?

So do your recipients! Think of how you read messages and what messages you respond positively to, and try to apply the same logic to your campaigns.

16) Don't Overdo It

Since email and text messaging is inexpensive, it can be tempting to flood your recipients with news and updates. But not only will you lessen the impact of your important messages, you run the risk of having your recipients opt-out of your campaigns entirely. How many is too many? That's different for each business. If you've established a long standing rapport with your recipients, then they may expect to hear from you every day. It's also different for different audiences. Members may like to hear from you every day, but customers may only want to hear from you if you have a special offer.

17) Mind Your Tone

Your message campaigns are a part of your online presence, which is a part of your complete brand and identity. Make sure the tone and content of your messages is in keeping with the tone and content on your website and your identity. Make sure that whomever is sending messages on your behalf is on the same page. We all have a tendency to be informal when sending messages to friends and family, but this may not be appropriate for your business communications.

18) Don't Overhype

Readers are conditioned to ignore emails and offers that are "over the top". Spam filters can be triggered by keywords and deceptive tactics. Be assertive and focused, but don't oversell. Avoid:

Overused words such as FREE, OFFER and GUARANTEE.

Unnecessary capitalization

Large fonts or wild colors

19) Be Careful

Online messaging is a powerful tool. With the press of a button you have the ability to broadcast a message to thousands of people. And once that button is pressed there is no going back!

Send test messages to yourself or your manager to proofread.

Think twice before getting emotional.

Never MWI (Message While Intoxicated). Enough said.

20) Follow Up

Improved communications with your clients, members and potential customers is a good thing, and it's good when they reply to your messages. Sometimes they will want more information, sometimes they will want to make a purchase, and sometimes they will want to give you feedback. Make sure that you make time to follow up on each reply, or the recipient will not only be less likely to reply next time but also less likely to read your next message. Yes- this can take a little time, but these messages are important and often lead to new revenue.

If you do not want to hear back from your recipients, that's OK too. But make it clear. Use a reply address for your campaign such as no-replies@yourdomain.com and make it clear in the email that they should not reply to the email. Tell them how they should make contact with you.

06/30/2009

Sending messages to your customers and members is a good way to increase service levels, sales and branding. You don't need to have a great reason to send a message- simply wishing them a happy holiday, thanking them for their continued support, or reminding them of an ongoing special offer are reason enough.

But with the majority of your message campaigns (as with your business initiatives) you will want to have a purpose, and that purpose is usually to either cut costs or increase revenues. Here are a number of ways you can not only increase the success rates for your messages, but increase their usefulness for your business.

Note: Many of these points are more relevant to email campaigns, but many can be applied to text messaging as well.

1) Build Your Lists

Build your list at every opportunity you have. If you have a retail location, add a point-of-sale sign up form. At conferences or events, ask everyone you speak with if you may add them to your list after you exchange business cards. Use Site Caddy to add your newsletter sign-up form to every page on your web site.

2) Use Clean Lists

Dumping messages on every address you can get your hands on is not effective marketing- it's spamming. Make sure your lists are clean and adjust your campaigns based on what you learn from your reports. Your conversion rates will climb and your messaging costs will drop.

3) Use Message Reports

Most messaging tools like Site Caddy include detailed reports on success and failures after message campaigns are sent. Take the time to review the reports and make adjustments to future campaigns based on the results. Make sure to keep your lists clean (e.g. remove hard bounces) to reduce the risk of being flagged as a spammer.

4) Get To The Point!

Many authors like to build their story slowly, starting with amusing anecdotes and gradually building to a crescendo. And while the Pulitzer Prize committee will surely appreciate your patient approach, email readers will either skip the fluff or discard your message entirely. Recipients scan emails quickly and make decisions in seconds. Get your important content to the top of the email. If they want to read on for more details, all the better.

5) Nail Your Subject Line

The subject line is a bit like the home page on a website: the temptation is to add too much information. But many email clients display only the first few characters of the subject line due to limited space. Be careful or your exceptionally well crafted and descriptive subject line will turn into a non sequitur. Again- get to the point early, and include less essential information later. And you don't need to tell them who you are in the subject line- Site Caddy will include that information in the email address. Here are a couple of examples:

Bad: Site Caddy Will Be Hosting a Special Email Strategy Webinar on June 29th

Good: Webinar on June 29th: Email Strategies

6) Use Calls to Action

Message reporting is not an exact science. The best way to increase reporting accuracy and judge the effectiveness of your campaigns is by recipient replies or click-throughs. You can easily encourage both in your emails. For example:

Don't add all content to your message. Use Site Caddy to add the content to your website (e.g. new page or news item) and then include just a synopsis and a link to the relevant page on your site.

Encourage the reader to take a specific action. Instead of just announcing a special offer, direct the reader to click on a link to find out details or participate.

Encourage readers to forward the message to a friend.

7) Use Landing Pages

The page your website visitor lands on when they get to your website is known as the landing page, and it is often not your home page. They may be coming from a search engine, a link in your messages, or links sent from your Site Caddy site to a friend.

Make it easy on your message recipients. If you are telling them about a special offer, don't just include a link to your home page and make them find the information on the offer. Include a link to a landing page that deals specifically with the special offer. If you don't have one already, use Site Caddy to create the page- it only takes a minute.

8) Stay Focused

Once in a while it's good to send a general newsletter or digest that covers a broad array of topics relevant to your recipients. But more often than not it's good to be specific and focused. Here are a few tips:

Keep your messages short: 2 short messages will be read before 1 long one.

Target your messages to groups: consider breaking your campaigns up by group and adjusting the message for each type of recipient.

9) Don't Overcommit

If you are going to start a weekly email campaign, fantastic! It will be a great way to let your members and customers know what's going on and to drive sales. But will your team have time to compose and send a campaign every week? Will you have time to follow up on the responses and check your reports to make sure your recipient lists are clean? If not, consider a less regular cycle (monthly or quarterly) or simply do not announce that messages will be delivered on a schedule.

10) Be Consistent

When you do commit to a scheduled messaging campaign, try to be consistent. Send messages on the same day of the week or month so your recipients will get in a routine. You can always mix in special announcements at any time.

Tomorrow I will list another 10 tips. Do you have any great tips? Comment on this blog post.

Enabling the subscribe feature on your website is a fantastic way to build your mailing list and it happens automatically through Site Caddy. Once you enable the Subscribe button, your visitors can click the Subscribe link in the Page Tools section, fill out a form with name and email address, and their information is automatically added to your People Caddy list.

When visitors subscribe, they are automatically added to a group in People Caddy called Subscribers. This way you can tell them apart from other members, customers or staff.

But make sure if you do enable your subscriber list that you use it! These are customers and members that are interested in hearing what you have to say. Make sure to keep them in the loop- even a simple mailshot once per month or per quarter to alert them to special offers or interesting news.